This invention relates, in general, to semiconductor devices, and more particularly to a method of fabricating a lateral semiconductor structure.
Conventional methods of fabricating lateral semiconductor structures are somewhat deficient in that the fabricated devices must sacrifice Early and breakdown voltages in order to maintain consistently high current gain. This is especially true of a lateral PNP bipolar device. In high voltage applications, lateral bipolar transistors generally require a large base width which is extremely hard to reproduce and control. The large base width causes increased base recombination thereby increasing the base current requirements of the device. Additionally, the large base width results in a device having greatly decreased speed.
In view of the above, it would be highly desirable to have a method of fabricating a lateral semiconductor structure that would allow for a relatively high speed device that maintains consistently high current gain without sacrificing Early or breakdown voltages.